Today, 4/21/22, is my last day in Munnar.
I started the day with a morning bird walk - Anlen was the guide and he was also my guide on the plantation walk 2 days ago. There were 4 other guests on this walk. As we started we saw some mushrooms growing up a tree.
There was a passionflower which was opening, but I couldn’t get a great shot of it. There was also a small tree growing which looked a bit like a junket puzzle tree, but can’t be sure.
It was a bit of a disappointment as the route was basically the same as the first day, just reversed. That said, we did take a slightly different path at the end through the plantation forest, which was nice. We didn’t see a lot of birds, but did see: common hill myna birds that probably had a nest nearby, a couple flying ant’s nests and 3 giant squirrels.
At one point we saw a wood pecker, a drongo, a malabar whistling thrush and an Esmeralda bird (for which I can’t find a picture).
The coffee trees were in bloom.
Back at the hotel there was Idli and chutney for breakfast along with toast that had a slightly sweet aftertaste- not my favorite.
The biggest disappointment was that the coffee was bitter and not as good as yesterday.
The Hike
At 9:30 I was off for a 5 minute drive to meet Hadlee - the same guide from yesterday. As we were discussing options for the route last night, he said there was a wonderful route about 90 minutes away where we would have a good chance to see animals and all sorts of birds, but there were leeches. He did offer me his leech socks if that would be helpful. I opted for the option about 15 minutes away that had fewer animals, but didn’t include leeches. This hike was about 5 miles with an altitude gain of about 1100 feet to about 5800 feet. The temperature and humidity were both about 73 degrees. The route took us up through a tea farm and along a ridge line formed by the local hills. As we walked through the tea farm we had an opportunity to see the plant trimming operations where they use a saw on an apparatus similar to a weed wacker.
as we got to the top we could see a crested serpent eagle and some beautiful ginger flowers.
There was alot of evidence of larger 4 legged beasts, but no actual animals. We saw scat from tigers (had a porcupine quill in it and it was very fresh, wild dogs, buffalo, leopard, porcupines.
There were also a lot of trig points- still not sure why, others than as some sort of boundary marker.
we stopped at the very highest point and were rewarded by getting shots of the cloud vapor sliding over the hill
and the visit of a very curious Nilgiri pippit.
We saw a common kestral, praying mantis, florescent beetles mating and a really big black beetle with brown wings.
As we were sitting I felt my skin start to dry and added more sun cream, but it didn’t really help- glad it was close to the last day. We started down with a quick stop at the crosses erected nearby. Walking down we saw some local wild raspberries and a form of mushroom that grows in elephant dung. I guess I can count this as my first training towards Mt Blanc in August.
The hotel has a fabulous pool which is built from granite(?) or maybe marble and felt great when I got back. It was warm at the top 6 inches and then quite cool, so was an interesting experience.
After swimming I had a rest and the electricity kept turning off/on. We had some issues last night at dinner too and it reinforced the feeling that we were very remote.
The Tea time was cardamom tea and today’s snack was banana fritters again
Dinner was fish curry, rice cakes, butter beans in sauce, and salad. Something was vindalu hot, but somehow I tolerated it. On the way back to the room you could see about 10 geckos on the ceilings- where do they go during the day?
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